The Fourth Angel

by Suzanne Chazin

  “But you got a medal,” Marenko said softly. “They don’t give medals for crapping out.”

  “Yeah, I got a medal. I radioed for help, crawled back to that hole, and lowered myself down a rope. It was probably no more than three minutes since I’d run, but it was enough. He was in bad shape, and I was burning up pretty good down there, too. Guys came and helped me pull him up. Petie never regained consciousness and died the next day.

  “There were reporters on the scene,” Georgia remembered. “And the chief in charge, without even talking to me, told them I’d rescued Ferraro. I was in the hospital getting treated while this was going on. When I came out, it was all over the news.”

  A siren sounded in the street. Georgia caught the outline of an ambulance whipping by. In the suburbs, that shrill wail was rarely attached to a fire truck. But to Georgia, the sound would forever speak of a past that couldn’t be rectified, a wrong that couldn’t be righted.

  “I felt bad to begin with,” she said softly. “Then to get that medal—that was the worst day of my life. Petie’s widow, Melinda, came up to me at the ceremony and thanked me. I didn’t know what to say. Obviously, no one had told her the truth. To this day, I’ve never been able to bring myself to visit her and her kids.”

  “Did you ever go back to the firehouse?”

  “Uh-uh. Once I ran at the fire, I just kept on running. I stayed out on medical leave for a while, then did some light duty work at headquarters. I’d taken the fire marshal’s exam a year earlier. Three months after the incident, I got the call that the job was mine. I thought it would make the nightmares go away.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “No.” She sighed. “Not even a little.”

  They sat in silence while Marenko drained his beer and Georgia watched the light fade from the sky. He checked his watch.

  “We should probably head up to Glassman’s house.” He reached for the check. Georgia offered to pay, but he waved her away. “A deal’s a deal. I said I’d buy you dinner.”

  In the car, Georgia finally broke the uneasy silence. “You think I’m a pretty pathetic excuse for a firefighter, don’t you?”

  Marenko shrugged. “I wasn’t at that fire, with my air running out and the place burning up. I can’t say I’d have done any different.”

  “But deep in your heart, you don’t think you’d have ditched a brother. Admit it, Mac.”

  “No, I don’t think I would’ve. But you’re, what? Five-foot-four? And you weigh what?”

  “One-twenty,” Georgia answered, shaving a few pounds off the truth. No woman admits what she really weighs.

  “Well, I’m six-two and I weigh two hundred. So I know if I’d have been there, I could’ve pulled him back up. You didn’t know that.”

  “Perhaps…”

  “Which is why women don’t belong in the FDNY. I think maybe you cost Ferraro his life, but I think it’s because you’re a woman, not a coward.”

  Georgia slammed her fist against the dashboard. “Oh, great. I never should’ve told you any of this. I’ve just confirmed every petty, Neanderthalic belief in your pea-size, testosterone-driven brain. First of all, I did get him out of there—all five-foot-four, hundred and twenty aerobically conditioned pounds of me. I just did it too late. I can bench-press a hundred and thirty pounds. I can run a five-minute mile. And I could drag your sorry ass out of a building. I just don’t know if I’d want to.”

  “Yeah? Well, I guess we’ll never know.” He reached across the dashboard, opened the glove compartment, and thrust a crumpled piece of paper into Georgia’s hands. “When you’re through nagging, maybe you could read me the directions to Glassman’s house.”

  “I’m not nagging.”

  “That’s what my ex-wife always said.”

  “Maybe that’s why she’s your ex-wife.”

  17

  It took Georgia and Mac twenty minutes to find Ronald Glassman’s house. The roads just outside of Chappaqua were long, winding, and poorly marked. The house was at the end of a long driveway up a steep hill. Marenko wanted to pull into the driveway. Georgia insisted it was more polite to park on the street.

  “Polite, my ass. What if I get bit by a rabid raccoon?”

  “Don’t tell me a six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound man is intimidated by a teensy-weensy raccoon?”

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  “Well, I think we should walk. And another thing: curb that mouth of yours. These aren’t a bunch of firefighters.”

  At the end of the steep driveway was a three-car garage adjoining a cedar-sided contemporary. The palladium window over the entrance was two stories high. The roof was pitched at odd angles, resembling something constructed from children’s blocks. Marenko couldn’t resist a peek in the garage. He let out a long whistle.

  “He’s got a Land Rover, a Mercedes convertible, and a Lexus. This guy’s loaded.”

  “Did we come here to buy a car or conduct an interview?” snapped Georgia. She rang the bell. A dog barked noisily from somewhere deep inside the house as a slim, bottle-blond woman answered the door. Marenko and Georgia flashed their badges, apologized for the intrusion, and asked to see Glassman.

  If the woman was surprised to see them, she gave no hint of it. Instead, she took their coats and led the marshals into a two-story, cathedral-ceilinged living room with plush white carpets, a white damask sofa, and a fieldstone fireplace that looked as if it had never been used.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” the woman asked. The dog continued to bark and growl from some unseen room. Georgia asked for some tea. Marenko shook his head. “Where’s your dog?” he asked nervously.

  “Mitzi? She’s just a little Pomeranian. She’s in the kitchen. We keep her there because she’s so difficult to catch once she gets outside. She won’t bother you.”

  The woman went to fix tea and Georgia grinned.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “So, one of New York’s Bravest is afraid of raccoons and yappy little Pomeranians. Remind me never to ask for your assistance if I’m cornered by a rabid animal.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of getting between you and your boyfriends.”

  Marenko paced the carpet and peered through French doors that led to an inground swimming pool off the patio. “This joint’s enormous. How much you think it costs?”

  Georgia frowned at him just as Ronald Glassman appeared in the archway of the living room. He was a handsome man, in a steely sort of way—early forties, slate-gray eyes, and just the faintest beginnings of a receding hairline. He wore a neatly pressed oxford shirt and pleated khaki trousers that contrasted nicely with a fading tan.

  “I was under the impression that I’d given you detectives all the information you needed the other day.” Glassman extended his hand and Georgia and Marenko shook it in turn, but his tone was brusque and businesslike and his handshake felt more like a weapon than a welcome.

  “We’re not detectives. We’re fire marshals,” Georgia innocently corrected. Marenko gave her a dark look. She was reminded of Chief Brennan’s words—she was just window dressing here.

  “How long is this going to take?” Glassman made a point of looking at his wristwatch.

  “Not one minute longer than it has to,” Marenko shot back. Clearly, the two men had already had some prickly dealings.

  Glassman sat stiffly on the couch, twirling a rubber band between his fingers. Georgia studied him with fascination. So you ’re the man who had an affair with Randy’s little girl, she was thinking. Did you tell her you loved her? Did she always know you were married? And what did you do when she told you she was pregnant?

  Actually, she could guess at the last one. She recalled it in Rick’s eyes like it was yesterday instead of a decade ago. The staccato pause. The frozen stance, as if the words he’d heard couldn’t have been the right ones. The forced, lame smile. But most of all, the dumb questions: How pregnant? Like any woman’s a little bit pregnant for long.

  Glassman’s wife ap
peared with tea, then sat beside her husband on the sofa with her hand on his knee. Marenko and Georgia traded looks. Spouses and parents were absolutely the worst people to have around, because a suspect would never admit to anything underhanded in their presence. Until they got Ron Glassman alone, they’d never be able to work him. Georgia was through being window dressing.

  “Mrs. Glassman?” She turned to the wife.

  “Wendy.”

  “Wendy. This is a very informal conversation. We just need your husband to verify some facts. Marshal Marenko and I don’t want to tie up both of your evenings.”

  “Nothing is more important than being here with Ron,” she insisted. Georgia looked helplessly at Marenko.

  “You got a bathroom in this place?” Marenko asked.

  “Off the kitchen, to the right. I’ll show you,” said Wendy.

  Georgia hoped Wendy might tail him, but she was back within seconds, so Georgia began rattling off a mundane list of questions for Glassman: Where was he the night of the fire? What was he working on? Were there witnesses?

  Glassman rolled his eyes. “I’ve told these people all this before,” he said to his wife. “This is why the city’s going down the tubes. The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.”

  A crash of what sounded like steel mixing bowls in the kitchen interrupted their conversation. The dog began yapping, then the yaps turned to growls, growing more distant by the second. Marenko returned to the living room.

  “I don’t know how it happened, but I think your dog got out, ma’am,” he said sheepishly.

  Wendy jumped up in a panic. “Oh, dear. She’s impossible to get back inside.”

  “I saw her running past the neighbor’s house,” Marenko said, his face as earnest as an altar boy’s. “I hope you can get her back all right.”

  Georgia licked her lips and lowered her gaze, hoping to wipe the grin from her face. Marenko got further on sheer audacity than anyone she knew. While Wendy looked for Mitzi, they’d have the suspect all to themselves.

  Glassman, however, had other ideas. “I think you people have done enough damage for one evening,” he said, rising. “Barging into my home and harassing my family. I’m on close terms with the Westchester County DA. One call from her and I could get both your badges.”

  Marenko stepped forward. He was taller than Glassman, more powerfully built, and quicker tempered. Georgia felt certain things would spin hopelessly out of control at one word from him. She stepped in and spoke quickly.

  “Mr. Glassman, no one wants to harass you. Please try to understand our point of view. Fifty-four people are dead. We’re desperate for information.”

  “I can’t help you,” he said, throwing the rubber band on the coffee table.

  “Hey, no problem,” said Marenko, opening his palms in an exaggerated gesture of magnanimity. “You don’t have to talk to us. You know your rights. We’ll leave.”

  “Good,” said Glassman.

  Georgia stayed rooted. She knew more was coming. Marenko bit the inside of his cheek and shrugged. “We’ll just run the DNA on the dead chick’s baby at the morgue. Then maybe we’ll tell Wendy what we found.” Marenko neglected to tell Glassman that, without a court order, no one could compel his DNA to complete the test. Georgia knew Marenko was banking on panic over reason. Cops do it all the time.

  Glassman froze. A sheen came over his eyes. He sank back on the sofa and put his head in his hands. Marenko hunched next to him. Georgia followed suit on the other side.

  “You were pissed at her, weren’t you?” Marenko said softly. “I mean, who wouldn’t be? This chick had you over a barrel.”

  Georgia knew what Mac was doing—depersonalizing the victim in order to gain the suspect’s confidence and wangle a confession. Still, it stung to think of Randy’s daughter as a “chick.” Georgia tried to push the image of Carter, collapsed and sobbing at the ME’s office, from her mind. Cops and marshals always handle cases from a dispassionate distance, she reminded herself. She couldn’t be dispassionate on this one.

  “That chick…what was her name?” Marenko asked. He knew damn well what her name was. He just wanted Glassman to say it. To ID her, and so establish a motive and connection.

  Glassman shifted his gaze to the family room. His kids were in there. “The porch,” he said stiffly, gesturing to a screened patio off the living room.

  The night had grown cold. Their breath drifted in the moonlit darkness. Shadows of leafless trees raked the outside wall. It would be so easy to rush things and get back to where it was warm. But if there was one rule about investigating, it was never fill the silences.

  Glassman paced the terra cotta tiles. “Her name was Cassandra Mott…Cassie Mott,” he mumbled. “She was a receptionist at my ad agency for a while. She was also a nightclub singer.”

  “Yeah…Cassie Mott,” said Marenko, like he’d just remembered it himself. “Well, that singer was gonna put a swan song to your beautiful life here.”

  Glassman stopped pacing and grimaced at Marenko. “You think I set the fire.”

  “To scare her, right?” Marenko prompted. “To get her to terminate the pregnancy. You didn’t think it would go this far. Hey, you’re a good family man. Anyone can see—”

  “Fuck you,” Glassman muttered through clenched teeth. “You come in here with your accusations. You don’t know shit, mister. I’m just some guy in a suit you’re looking to hang so you can go back to bowling or whatever it is you do with your fire buddies.”

  Georgia noticed Marenko’s fists curling at his sides. It was taking all his powers of control not to belt the guy. Georgia stepped in.

  “Mr. Glassman, don’t you care that she’s dead? That you may have information that can help us here?”

  “I care. A whole lot more than you people. To you, she’s just a name on a file. What do you know about her, anyway?”

  “She was born and raised in Mount Airy, North Carolina.” The words came unbidden, as if Georgia were reciting them from her own life. A cool gust of wind whipped past her, forming large goose bumps on her arms. She shivered. “Her dad was in the military. He never married her mother and left when she was five. She wore a rose quartz amulet on a silver-plated chain that he’d given her as a child. He still keeps an old picture of her in his wallet. He has no other biological children, and is devastated by her loss.”

  Glassman reared back. Marenko’s jaw dropped. Both men stared at her. “So you see, Mr. Glassman,” said Georgia softly. “We do care.”

  “You were at Rubi Wang’s party on Monday night,” Marenko prodded.

  “N-no,” Glassman stammered. “I told you yesterday. I was working late.”

  Georgia and Marenko exchanged surprised looks. Obviously, Glassman had no idea about the surveillance tape. If he could lie about being at the party, what else could he lie about?

  Glassman must have read his misstep in their faces. His voice took on a sudden, desperate edge. “Do you honestly think I’d kill fifty-four people?” He laughed nervously. “I’m not some street punk with a fourth-grade education, you know. Maybe you can run mental gymnastics around those guys, but not here.”

  “So tell us the truth, then,” Georgia offered.

  Glassman sighed and shook his head. “I want to help you, but I…” He looked back at the living room now. Wendy was clearing teacups from the coffee table. He took a deep breath, like a man waking up from a trance. “I can’t lose all this, do you understand?”

  Georgia nodded sympathetically. Marenko, however, had had enough. He folded his arms across his chest. “Hey, we’re not your therapists, okay? The sooner you come clean about what went down, the better it’s gonna be for you, pal.”

  Georgia gritted her teeth. They’d come so close. Even in the darkness, she could see Glassman’s resolve hardening.

  “If you marshals had anything to arrest me on, you’d have done it already. As far as I’m concerned, from this moment on, you’re not talking to me or my family without a
lawyer present. Now get out, before I have the local police come and show you a little Chappaqua hospitality.”

  18

  Firefighter Sean Duffy adjusted the volume on his department radio. It was hard to hear the dispatcher’s voice above the noise inside the VFW hall. And it was hot, too. The place reminded him of a high school gym. Sweat glistened along the dark shafts of his crew cut and trickled down the collar of his long-sleeved navy blue uniform shirt.

  Lieutenant Danny Greco put a hand on his broad back. Greco, Duffy’s commanding officer, was a stocky, balding man with a thick mustache and a beer belly. He was also the chief of department’s son.

  “Go ahead, Duff. Have a beer.” The officer gestured to a long oak bar. The beer was flowing like water. Dozens of firefighters—on and off duty—were gathered in clusters, drinking, smoking, and raucously discussing everything from the Yankees’ pitching to who was going to the memorial mass. “One beer’s not gonna hurt a big guy like you,” said Greco. “It’ll just cool you down.”

  “Thanks, Lieu.” Duffy nodded. “But I really don’t feel like it. I’d like to go back to the firehouse, if that’s all right with you. Maybe man the housewatch desk.”

  Greco shrugged. “Dispatch knows where to find us. We’ve got our radios. But if it makes you feel better…” The lieutenant took a gulp of his own beer. “You’ll miss the floor show, you know,” he said with a wink. “It’ll be starting any minute.”

  “That’s okay.” Duffy wasn’t sure he wanted to see it anyway, but he kept those thoughts to himself. The annual floor show was a tradition at the firehouse, the theme always something with a crude or insulting edge to it. Last year, shortly before Duffy got assigned here, the theme was Hasidic hairstyles. The men got drunk, donned coffee filters like yarmulkes, and taped long paper sideburns to their heads as they danced with hired strippers. Some bright spark got the idea to film it. Fortunately for the FDNY, Chief Greco happened to get wind of the tape before it reached the media, so the event never went further than downtown, though everyone in the trenches knew about it.